ARTSingapore 2008 has some important surprises in store says Asian Art News. There will be a new focus on art from Korea, India and Japan, first time gallery participants, a collector’s show of art never before displayed in public and specially featured emerging artists to watch.

“This year’s event will highlight a sizeable representation from India Korea and Japan,” says fair director Chen Shen Po. Alongside 22 new Korean fair participants ARTSingapore will also welcome 13 Japanese art galleries including Megumi Ogita Gallery, Shonandai MY Gallery, Arte Gallery and Shinsedo Hatanaka. This marks a new milestone in the development of the fair which has historically been a showcase for South East Asian art.

This year the popular Special Collector’s Showcase section is curated by Masanori Fukuoka owner and founder of Japan’s Glenbarra Art Museumand who according to Asian Art News is ‘recognised as the world’s top collector and connoisseur of Indian contemporary art’. Fukuoka has arranged a solo show of Jogen Chowdhury (b 1939), one of the foremost artists of post-Independent India which will contain 18 ink pastel and watercolour works never before displayed in public.

As well as the Collector’s Showcase there will be another important exhibition. Kim Soo Keong a leading collector in Korea and a director of Kwangju Biennale Foundation has agreed to loan the Fair a group works from her collection of more than 100 pieces of Nam June Paik’s works, some of which including TV Repair Man and Blue Buddha have never been shown in public. Kim Soo Keong’s Nam June Paik collection is widely regarded as being amongst the most important in the world.

In total the fair will feature 110 galleries and institutions from 16 countries who will showcase more than US$30 million of artworks before an expected 15,000 visitors. Despite the fair’s growth from just 19 galleries in 2000, the Singapore fair remains ‘one of the most friendly and accessible’ fairs in the region says Asian Art News.